Frosting
by kmf
Summary: He had always been lucky on missions, and this one was proving no different....A Challenge fic for the GWHeeroandRelenaML


Rating: PG  
  
Warnings: none really, apart from unnecessary violence against a poor defenceless kitchen and perhaps future mental anguish for Peygan.  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own GW. However, I do own this plot.  
  
A Challenge fic for the GW_Heero_and_Relena_ML. Particular thanks to out to Steffy who so inspired me to finish this with her super hot drawing of Heero reclining on a cake ^_^ Now isn't that a treat we would all like to have!  
  
  
  
Frosting by kmf  
  
Relena had woken him in the middle of the night by shoving him not so gently in the ribs. She had taken to waking him up at odd hours, if not by tossing and turning trying to get her swollen body comfortable, then with her sudden demands for food. Tonight it was a yearning for chocolate cake. She whispered her demand in his ear before pulling away to look at him, her eyes pleading and desperate. When his only action was to turn over trying to regain the pleasant dream he had been having, she had declared that if she did not get chocolate cake she would die.  
  
Literally.  
  
Heero had tried to be the voice of reason, arguing that it was the middle of the night, no patisseries were open, and couldn't she please wait? She had argued that she was aware that it was the middle of the night but that time had no meaning for her unborn child. She went on to state that she was also aware that there were no shops open but they had a fully functional kitchen stocked with all the ingredients needed to make chocolate cake together with several very good recipe books.  
  
Despite her excellent speech (how was it she was so eloquent when most people would be bleary eyed and incoherent?), Heero had been adamant that he was not going to bake at 3.00am. Until, that was, Relena bought out her trump card. Her eyes had misted up, she had blinked several times before a single tear had escaped and rolled down her cheek. At that moment, Heero knew that he had lost.  
  
And so Heero found himself in unfamiliar enemy territory at 0315 hours without so much as a battle plan. He had stood in the doorway and surveyed the room, which gleamed white and pristine. The coffee maker he knew well, the rest of the equipment he had up until now avoided. Of course, he did have basic culinary skills. He could build a fire, reconstitute freeze dried food with water and heat until hot (or luke warm if he was particularly hungry). However, that was in his youth. In the past few years, he had become aquatinted with and rather partial to the better things in life. This included having meals prepared for him by kitchen staff who knew exactly how to mix raw ingredients to produce something fit to eat.  
  
Riffling through one of the many drawers, Heero's first mission objective was fulfilled when he located an assortment of recipe books. Scanning through them he sighed when he realised just how many different types of chocolate cake there were: Swiss chocolate, German chocolate cake, plain chocolate cake, one egg chocolate cake, light as air chocolate cake, chocolate and raspberry cake. The list went on and Heero shook his head. Would it matter to Relena what type he selected? Would she be upset if he made mocha chocolate cake when she wanted caramel chocolate cake? Did she want milk chocolate, dark chocolate or white? Heero considered returning to their bedroom to define his mission parameters, but the thought of braving an already emotional woman was too much. No, he would stick to a plain milk chocolate cake. In situations like this, simplicity was normally best.  
  
Choosing as recipe at random from a very plain unassuming recipe book*, he surveyed the ingredients; butter, sugar, cocoa powder, eggs, flour, baking powder. It seemed simple enough. Butter was found in a fridge and sugar in a large bin in a cupboard. A set of scales enabled him to measure the amounts accurately, however the first instruction confused Heero. 'Cream butter and sugar'. Heero looked at the list of ingredients again. There was no mention of cream. Anywhere. Heero glanced at his watch and saw that it was now 0335 and felt his heart begin to race a little. He was getting behind on him mission, something that he hated. He referred back to other recipe books. All started 'Cream butter and sugar'.  
  
Heero sighed and looked into the fridge. A pint of whipping cream sat there, together with some clotted cream and sour cream. He frowned. Just which type of cream was it? He pulled all three out and sat them on the bench next to the measured butter and sugar. Shrugging he tipped the butter into a bowl, added the sugar, then used a little of each type of cream. Better to be safe than sorry he thought. With a wooden spoon, he stirred the ingredients around a little. The butter was rock hard from the fridge and just sat in an annoying lump in the middle of the bowl, surrounded by half melted sugar and cream. Heero frowned. Certainly, this was not the correct consistency for a cake. Considering his options, he decided to place the bowl in the microwave to melt the butter. Setting the timer for a couple of minutes, he turned his attention to making himself a much-needed cup of coffee.  
  
A sizzling noise alerted him to the fact that the butter had melted and had, in fact, hit its boiling temperature. He rescued the bowl from the microwave, cursing as his fingertips were burnt by the now super heated ceramic bowl. Stirring the mixture again he noted that it was now a deep golden colour and quite sticky. He shrugged again, satisfied that at least now the ingredients were mixed.  
  
Next up on his list were eggs. Unfortunately, Heero's sleep deprived mind forgot what would happen when you cracked a raw egg into what basically was a boiling bowl of lard. Having the raw egg suddenly begin to sizzle and go a lovely opaque white was not exactly what Heero expected to happen. Stirring furiously to try to break up the egg, Heero was left with a mixture that resembled extremely greasy scrambled eggs. Referring to his watch Heero decided that too much mission time had already gone by. There was no time to redo the cake batter to this point. As he stirred furiously, he hoped that Relena would not notice little white and yellow flecks in her chocolate cake.  
  
Flour came next. With the instructions to sieve with baking powder, cocoa and a little salt. The different types of flour threw Heero yet again. Cornflour, plain flour, self-raising flour, chickpea flour, wholemeal flour. Bins lined up in the pantry with the sole purpose, Heero was sure, of irritating and frustrating him. Glaring at the plastic bins he chose self-raising flour because, of course, the cake had to rise during the baking process. Everyone knew that. He was unable to find a sieve, so just dumped the required amount in the bowl, stirring furiously and ignoring the splatters of cake batter and flour that flew across the pristine bench top.  
  
Cocoa powder followed with an extra spoon going in because Heero didn't think that the mixture looked nearly chocolatey enough to satisfy a craving woman. The last ingredient was baking powder. After pulling out most of the contents of one cupboard, Heero found a small cardboard box with the legend 'baking soda' on the outside. He frowned as he considered, then shrugged. It sounded close enough to him. Opening the packet, he extracted the little plastic encased sachet of powder. There were no scissors at hand to help him open it, so he just pulled the top. Unfortunately he miscalculated his own strength versus the plastic bag and suddenly found himself in a cloud of white powder as the sachet exploded.  
  
Stunned he stood blinking for a couple of seconds before looking down at the mess that was the kitchen bench and floor. White powder covered everything like a fall of snow. However, it seemed that he had got lucky this time as the majority had fallen into the mixing bowl. Heero smirked, then sneezed as the powder assailed his nose. He had always been lucky on missions, and this one was proving no different.  
  
Stirring again the mixture began to look like cake mix, if you ignored the occasional lump or three that swam to the surface. Heero began to feel reasonably confidant that his mission would in fact succeed. A greased cake tin was the next requirement. Heero found a nice round tin, and looked for something to grease the tin with. Oil? Butter? Lard? Heero found no clues as to which was best, and decided to use oil as it was easy to just pour into the tin. A few liberal dashes of olive oil later, the tin was prepared and ready to receive the batter. After spooning the mix into the tin he checked his watch again. 0350 hours. Heero felt satisfaction; he had clawed back some mission time by not using the sieve.  
  
Referring to the recipe book again, he read that the next step was to place the cake in a preheated oven. Heero blinked. Preheated? He looked at the oven. It was cold, he had not thought to turn it on before starting the recipe. He shrugged, opened the oven and placed the cake on the shelf. Closing the door he turned the dial to the required heating setting. Then added another 50 degrees to allow for the oven not being preheated and to generally hurry things along.  
  
Heero sat down with a sigh and sipped his coffee feeling the satisfaction of a dangerous mission almost complete. He referred to his watch again - 0400, only an hour had gone by since the mission parameters had been set in place. He glanced at the oven calculating that in another hour his wife would be have her cake and eat it too.  
  
Looking around the kitchen he mentally winced. It was a disaster area. Cake batter had dripped over the kitchen bench and had trailed down one of the cupboard doors. The microwave was coated with a good layer of grease due to Heero boiling the butter, the contents of several cupboards were piled up over the counter and had a fine layer of what Heero took to be baking soda over them. In fact, in the process of making one small cake Heero had fairly well trashed the entire kitchen. Peygan was going to have a stroke if he saw it like this, but there was probably time to clean up whilst waiting for the cake to bake.  
  
Movement in the doorway drew his attention. Relena stood there, swathed in a white terry-towelling bathrobe with ridiculous sheep slippers encasing her feet. She stood a little bleary eyed surveying the mess in which Heero sat amongst, her hand protectively draped across her rapidly expanding belly.  
  
"You're early." Heero stood and walked to her, taking her arm and guiding her into the brightness of the kitchen "Its not cooked yet." he gestured towards the oven whilst sitting her down on one of the stools.  
  
She smiled gently "Couldn't sleep." She followed his nod and frowned at the oven. "Is that supposed to do that?" She asked.  
  
Heero restrained a curse as he saw that the batter had swollen in the heat of the oven to a disproportionate size to the cake tin and was now gently oozing over the edge to settle on the bottom of the oven.  
  
"Yes." he said firmly, mentally reviewing the recipe whilst also silently repeating the mantra 'deny all', a statement which held him such good stead through previous missions.  
  
Relena got up and moved to the fridge. Bending down she rummaged until she found a can of frosting, which she quickly opened. Heero watched her silently as she also got a spoon from a drawer, dipped it deeply into the chocolate ooze and lifted it to her mouth. Her eyes rolled in bliss as the taste hit her palette, and Heero had to hide a smile as the enormous spoonful did not make it completely past her lips. He found himself staring at her mouth, wondering just how sweet she would taste at this moment in time.  
  
Her head jerked towards the oven again pulling him out of his reverie. "I said." she said patiently, obviously repeating herself, "Are you sure that is supposed to happen?"  
  
Smoke was beginning to billow out from the oven as the batter finally reached its ignition point and began to crisp on the super heated metal. Heero quickly got to his feet and opened the oven. Using a pair of red tartan oven mitts, he grabbed the offending smoking dish and pulled it out. He threw it into the sink and turned on the tap to douse it thoroughly with water. A noisy hiss emitted from the sink as steam and smoke rose and mingled in the air.  
  
Heero gazed at the sink, his face blank. Internally he was screaming with frustration and irritation. His mission had failed! A few raw ingredients and an oven had beaten him. He who had mastered the workings of a gundam, could hack into the most secure system, who could infiltrate the most heavily guarded premises had failed to make a simple chocolate cake. For a moment he wished he had his gun on him so he could shoot a few holes in the damn thing - it wouldn't hurt the cake, but it would sure as hell give him a great deal of satisfaction.  
  
"I don't think even I could eat that." Relena had come to stand by his side to survey the mess in the sink. Heero stood still waiting for the inevitable sniff and sob from his heavily pregnant and craving wife. He wondered if he could drive somewhere and force a patisserie to open, at gunpoint if necessary, so that he could secure the cake that she so desired. A soft chocolate scented kiss to his cheek bought him back from his musing. Turning to Relena he saw that she was happily holding the can of frosting close to her chest, whilst sucking a chocolate dipped finger.  
  
"I only fancied the frosting anyway." she said softly, before turning to waddle back out the kitchen door.  
  
...only the frosting?  
  
Heero surveyed the path of mess and destruction that was now the kitchen, his eyes focussing on the lid of the frosting that Relena had opened. The pre-packaged ready-made frosting. The frosting that only had to be removed from the fridge and opened to be used. The frosting that would have only taken five minutes to collect and deliver to her in bed. The sweet frosting that now covered her fingers and lips and begged to be licked away.  
  
Heero's expression changed from a frown to a smirk. He flicked the kitchen light off before following his wife up to bed. He would face Peygan later that morning and pay the price for single-handedly destroying the butler's kitchen.  
  
But right now he had a new mission on his mind. One which most certainly took priority.  
  
End  
  
* The recipe book I am referring to is the 'Edmonds Sure to Rise' cookery book, my old favourite from my home country of New Zealand. My rather old and battered edition has followed me faithfully around the world twice so far and is currently cooking up a storm in the UK. So, what did you think? Please do let me know, as I love to get feedback! 


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